green beans with garlicky tomato concassé

The first real frost forecast came late last week.

After some discussion, we decided that tucking table clothes around the tomato plants probably wouldn't provide enough protection, as it had the week before.

So, Thursday night after dinner, my intrepid husband donned a headlamp and got out our biggest bowl. He came back in with his bowl full of little green tomatoes.

Now, we have two full cookie sheets of tomatoes in various stages of green to red.

But I'm not concerned.

Because I have discovered the wonderful world of tomato concassé.

I don't think I'd ever had concassé before, except maybe in a fancy restaurant where I didn't know all the names for things that happily passed by my lips.

Laura Calder, of course, knows the names for French foods, and I found this recipe for green beans with garlicky tomato concassé as part of a menu called "An Unintimidating Dinner on a Reasonable Budget"* in Dinner Chez Moi.

How could I resist?

It turns out that a concassé is this plump, velvety mass of tomato sauce that tastes like it costs  well beyond "reasonable."

I think the secret might be the mere half a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, which somehow brightens the tomatoes but doesn't make them at all acidic. And that little teaspoon of sugar makes the tomatoes softer and more friendly, too.

Concassé is a tomato sauce transformed, and it's lovely and smooth alongside crisp green beans. Just the thing for your trays of tomatoes.

* If you're curious what else is on Laura's menu: avocado with citrus dressing, flat-roasted chicken with merguez sausages and a cake of cherries.


one year ago: beet hummus
two years ago: parsley lentil pasta
three years ago: mrs. doucet's apple chutney

green beans with garlicky tomato concassé
from Laura Calder

4 large tomatoes
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 – 3 garlic cloves, sliced
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. balsamic vinegar
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper
675 g. (1 1/2 lbs) green beans, trimmed

First, set about peeling the tomatoes. Bring a pot of water to boil. Mark a small X on the tomato bottoms and drop them into the simmering water. Leave in for 10 seconds to 1 minute to loosen the skin. Use a slotted spoon to take the tomatoes out and set the tomato water aside. Place the tomatoes in ice-cold water so they stop cooking and you can work with them sooner.

When they're cool enough, peel the tomatoes. Make thick slices and push out the seeds. Set the seeds aside to use for something else.* Chop the tomato flesh until it's a pulp.

Put a large frying pan over medium heat and heat the oil. Cook the garlic gently for up to one minute; don't let it colour. Stir in the tomato pulp, sugar, balsamic vinegar and bay leaves. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook until it becomes a thick sauce, about 20 minutes. Remove the bay leaves.

Set the tomato water over the heat again and salt it. Once it's boiling, cook the green beans until al dente, about 5 minutes. Drain the beans and put them in an ice-water bath to stop further cooking. Drain again.

Stir the beans into the tomato concassé and gently heat through. Serve.

* I like to put the juicy tomato seeds in a small bowl, season it with salt and pepper, and eat it like a fancy appetizer.

rocky mountain climb

Right. So I do understand that this is supposed to be a food blog.

But.

Last weekend we cheated fall and went camping in Jasper, in the Rocky Mountains. And I just had to show you.

The nights were cool – I mean put-on-a-tuque-and-a-down-vest-and-cozy-up-to-the-campfire cool – but the sun rose in the morning over the Athabasca River right behind our campsite and slowly gained strength until it felt like a mid-summer's day.

On Saturday morning, after a simple breakfast of cereal and bananas and tea, we loaded up the backpack and set off for Edith Cavell Meadows.

This is the Angel Glacier. Last year, a chunk of the nearby Ghost Glacier hurtled down the mountain and pushed tons of rocks and water over the path to make it unpassable.

Every so often, we could hear the glaciers groaning and creaking, especially as the sun beat down on one of the angel's wings.

The meadows were a native heather and little old trees that a sign told us could be one hundred years old.

This is where we stopped for lunch: ham sandwiches, carrots, peanut butter rice crispy balls, chocolate, a lot of water, and quite the view.

Refueled, we climbed another three hundred metres straight up to reach the top of the moon. Or so it looked.

Everywhere we looked, we could see mountain valleys and ranges leading off into other worlds.

The sky was as blue as could be and the small blister on my right heel was nothing, nothing, compared to standing on top of the world.

one year ago: beet hummus
two years ago: parsley lentil pasta
three years ago: salted chocolate shortbread and a taster menu from gluten-free girl & the chef

warm salad of crispy chicken thighs

My dad is a true gardener.

He's willing to plant just about anything: tomatillos, epazote, Amish snap peas, fig trees, huckleberries, wild fennel, barbecue rosemary, frilly pink poppies.

It all shoots up happily in his small backyard, and he tends it with seaweed and horse manure and anything else it might need.

Scott and I like Dad's garden so much that it actually figured into when we decided to go to B.C. this summer (August = more ripe things in the garden).

One morning at Dad's a couple weeks ago, we were making scrambled eggs the way we always make them there: with at least six or seven different herbs from the garden.

Then my genius husband remembered Nick Nairn's warm salad with crispy chicken thighs, which just so happens to be one of Scott's specialities. He knew we could use copious amounts of herbs from Dad's garden, and we were heading off to the Courtenay farmers' market later that morning.

Sure enough, we wandered around at the market, picking up soft ripe tomatoes, fresh green beans, dark green lettuce, a new little fennel bulb . . . all the fixings.

That evening, Scott and Dad set to work on the salad and frying the chicken, while I sat in the back little office and caught up on email (because my life is glamourous like that).

Half an hour later, they called me to the table. The chicken was warm and crispy, the salad was crunchy and sweet and a little bit sharp with the vinaigrette, and it was the perfect summer meal.

Cooking note: Scott is militant about frying the chicken Nick's way. He insists that you just keep frying it for more than 20 minutes without fussing at it. That way, the skin gets crisp and golden. I worry about the meat overcooking, but thighs are moist and tender to begin with and somehow they turn out perfectly with this method. ("Of course they do," I hear Scott saying in my head, "because that's how you're supposed to do it." Right.)

Bonus photo of Dad and me in his garden last year

one year ago: ode to victoria and little house on the prairie
two years ago: salmon for dinner and hop & go fetch it: german edition
three years ago: black & blue scotch berries and plant yourself some garlic

warm salad of crispy chicken thighs
slightly adapted from Nick Nairn

4 boneless chicken thighs with skin on (about 140 g. or 5 oz. each)
2 tbsp. neutral oil, such as grapeseed or canola
1 garlic clove, lightly crushed
1 tbsp. lemon juice
140 g. (5 oz.) salad greens
50 g. (2 oz.) green beans, blanched in boiling water for 3 minutes
12 cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
herbs (parsley, oregano, thyme, summer savory, basil, etc.)
1/2 red pepper, seeded and julienned (optional)
1/2 c. fennel bulb, finely sliced (optional)
2 tbsp. vinaigrette (to follow)
chives, to taste, cut into 3 or 4 sections

Set a frying pan over low-medium and heat it. Season the chicken thighs well with salt and pepper. Pour the oil in the pan and put the chicken in with the skin side down. Add the garlic to flavour the oil. Cook until the skin is very crisp and releases from the bottom of the pan, about 20 – 30 minutes.

Turn the chicken over and remove the garlic. Cook for another 2 – 3 minutes. Pour in the lemon juice and shake the pan to move it around. Cook 3 more minutes. Remove the chicken and let it rest 5 minutes.

To assemble the salad, put the greens, beans, tomatoes, herbs, red pepper and fennel and in a bowl. Toss with just enough vinaigrette to just coat. Divide between the serving plates. Cut each thigh into 6 or 7 strips and place on top each salad. Garnish with lots of long pieces of chives. Eat immediately, while the chicken is crisp and wonderful.

vinaigrette
from Je sais cuisiner

salt
1 tbsp. white wine or rice vinegar*
3 tbsp. good quality olive or neutral oil

Mix a bit of salt with the vinegar. Whisk in the oil and taste for seasoning.

* Really, any nice vinegar you like.

summer road trip

There were colours on our drive around British Columbia.

Blue skies, sunburnt yellow fields, blushing peaches, the impossible blue and green of the water.

But somehow the sweep of a mountain and the ripple of a lake shore is clearer in black and white.

Mount Robson in the Rockies.

In the Rocky Mountain trench, near Valemount.

Witty's Lagoon, near Victoria on Vancouver Island.

The land my Scottish great-grandparents settled in 1920, which my dad now manages as a woodlot. Near Courtenay on Vancouver Island.

Wild brambles on my dad's land.

Rinsing his feet in the ocean after a dusty walk through the bush.

Red and blue huckleberries I picked in my dad's front yard for breakfast.

Day trip to Quadra Island.

Pretending I actually live on Quadra Island.

View across Okanagan Lake from Kettle Valley Winery in Naramata.

Lake shore during an afternoon swim in Peachland.

Picnic lunch on our way home at Kicking Horse River in Golden.


one year ago: cherry peach jam
two years ago: tschüss, deutschland! and german groceries
three years ago: peach crisp and tomato zucchini gratin

snack chronicles: super fudge

As a constant snacker and snack-baker-maker, I'm not sure why I didn't try this recipe sooner.

It's been sitting in my recipe binder, gathered from a visit with Angela in Halifax in July 2006.*

I've glanced over it for ages, but I think the fact that it has sunflower seeds scared me off.

I shouldn't have been scared.

Without further ado, may I present super fudge?

It is not, in any traditional sense of the world, fudge. It's more like a homemade Eat-More bar, with a bit of cocoa and honey and peanut butter to bind seeds and gooey dates together.

It's not fudge, it's super fudge.

Making it is fun, too. You heat up honey and peanut butter till they're loose and hot. Then you quickly stir the cocoa and everything else in . . . and watch everything magically change.

Suddenly, the texture is more like fudge, more like you want to roll a ball of it between your fingers just to see what it will do.

You quickly pour it into a lined pan, let it firm up even more in the fridge.

I used roasted sunflower seeds and sesame seeds – thanks to the brilliant husband for the suggestion – and they give a light, toasty crunch in their chocolate-y body. Perfect for snacking.

This recipe makes about 36 little squares, which I individually wrap and keep in the freezer. Every morning this week, I have grabbed a super fudge bar on my way out the door, and been very happy to find it at work around 11 a.m.

*I know that because I actually mark every recipe with a date and place. Call me crazy, but I get a kick out of looking back on them.

P.S. And now I am off on summer vacation! I am getting the distinct sense that said brilliant husband would prefer I helped pack as opposed to write a post. I will try to do my duty. Bye!

one year ago: finding jim mitchell lake and tarragon three-bean salad
two years ago: sun tea
three years ago: rote grütze on ice cream and rosemary corn butter

super fudge
yields about 36 small bars of super fudge

1 c. honey*
1 c. natural salted peanut butter
1/4 c. cocoa powder or carob powder
1 c. roasted unsalted sesame seeds
1 c. roasted unsalted sunflower seeds
1/2 c. flaked or shredded coconut
1/2 c. dates or other dried fruit

Line an 8" by 8" square pan with parchment or wax paper.

Heat the honey and peanut butter over medium-low heat. Stir together. Turn off the heat.

Quickly stir in the cocoa powder, and then all the seeds, coconut and dates. Pour into pan and refrigerate to harden. Cut into squares and keep in the freezer.

*I'm going to try 3/4 c. next time and see if the texture still works. I'll update you when I know.

homemade barbecue sauce

Dear Reader, I have not been having an easy time of it in the kitchen.

In the past couple of weeks, I have attempted to adapt my grandmother's brickle recipe to be gluten-free. That's a kind of frozen pecan and caramel crumble with a layer of vanilla ice cream in the middle. Kind of hard to get wrong. You would think.

Well, it was OK. A bit too sweet, not quite crumbly enough, kind of hard on the teeth.

Then I pulled out my. favourite. cook. book. ever. and attempted a white gazpacho soup with almonds and grapes.

It was so odd that I can't even think of the words to describe it. Kind of fluffy and acidic. Which probably doesn't make your mouth water.

Well, how about a simple mango gelato recipe with yogurt, honey and lime? Just – weird. The lime reminded me of salsa, which is not what I was going for in a dessert.

Saturday morning, I pulled out a very reliable breakfast cook book, mashed up some bananas and made banana oat cakes.

I fried them on the griddle, in lots of butter as directed, and they became mushy, gritty pucks.

  Instead of photos of bad food, here's my deck pot.
Isn't it pretty?

Now, when I go into the kitchen, Scott says, "Please don't make any more weird recipes." Which really boosts my confidence.

However, in the midst of all my bad luck, I did learn how to make a good barbecue sauce.

I don't know about you, but I get very frustrated when I try to buy barbecue sauce because the first ingredient is always some kind of chemical sugar. I did find a local company that makes barbecue sauce sweetened with honey, and I like it, but I wouldn't mind a bit more kick.

Enter Martha Stewart. (I won't call her "ever-reliable" because, with my recent track record, who knows what will happen the next time I attempt one of her recipes?)

With hot sauce, ketchup, cider vinegar, Dijon mustard and garlic, this barbecue sauce has a kick. It also has brown sugar and molasses, so it is sweetened but I wouldn't call it a very sweet sauce.

Martha has an excellent technique for barbecuing oiled and salted chicken (we did all thighs with skin that got crisp and tasty), where you don't baste the meat with the sauce until just before it's done cooking. That means the sugars don't burn black and the chicken finishes up with a nice glaze.

We had extra sauce, so we also tried it on sausages, with the same technique of just brushing it on at the end. We loved it. It was, I thought, finally good enough to be a recipe I could share with you.

Make this sauce. It takes 10 minutes. It actually works.

one year ago: eton mess with boozy berries
two years ago: german zucchini soup and sun tea
three years ago: minestrone with summer herbs and chocolate raspberry horse turds

martha stewart's barbecue sauce
from Martha Stewart
yields about 1 1/4 cups of sauce

1/2 c. ketchup
1 tsp. hot sauce
1/3 c. cider vinegar
3 tbsp. Dijon mustard
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. molasses

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Let simmer for 5 – 7 minutes, or until reduced to about 1 1/4 cups. Use what you need and store the rest in the fridge.

silken chocolate mousse

Years ago, I discovered the chocolate mousse with raspberries at the Ogden Point Café in Victoria.

It was served in a tall parfait glass with a thick layer of raspberries in the middle and a few more on top for good measure. With a cup of hot tea, it was just the thing after a bracing walk along the breakwater at Ogden Point.

For such a rich and creamy dessert, it always sat surprising well in my tummy.

Years later, I heard that the mousse was actually made with silken tofu. Mystery solved, I thought, and filed it away. Why I didn't act on that information immediately vexes me now that I have made this mousse myself.

Fast-forward to this June.

Sheri and her family were coming from New Zealand to stay with us for a couple of days. Sheri and I met in university and got to know each other over many cups of tea and chocolate-y cookies and treats.

Even though we haven't lived in the same city for 13 years, we've always shared recipes over the miles and treats when we meet up. But now Sheri can't eat gluten, dairy or eggs.

Given our history of sharing treats, I was determined to serve dessert – and not just fruit salad. (Scott and I have heated debates about whether fruit salad is a valid dessert and I maintain it is not.)

I thought and thought and eventually pulled the Ogden Point chocolate mousse out of the recesses of my brain. Aha! A quick search turned up the ever-reliable Michael Smith with a recipe. With three ingredients. I was sold.

Michael Smith calls this the "world's fastest chocolate mousse" and I have to say I agree. It's all done (and chilling in the fridge) in under ten minutes – although I will not discount the dish washing, which includes a pot with melted chocolate. So let's say 20 minutes from start to mousse chilling to clean kitchen.

If you have some doubts about including tofu in your mousse, try to let them go. As long as you get silken tofu, it really does whip up to be smooth and creamy. The mousse doesn't taste even remotely like tofu because tofu is just the carrier: it absorbs the chocolate and vanilla flavours and gives them body.

You may also choose to do what I did for other dessert guests. I didn't mention it had tofu until they were licking their lips and asking me for the recipe.

related: caramel chocolate mousse 
one year ago: salmon with warm tomato basil oil and balancing tofino and the plane
two years ago: kristina's nuss kuchen and german zucchini tomato soup
three years ago: loganberry jelly

silken chocolate mousse
from Michael Smith
serves 6

227 g. (8 oz.) dark chocolate, chopped roughly
227 g. (8 oz.) silken tofu
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
250 g. (1 c.) rasperries

Put the chocolate in the top of a double boiler, or a metal bowl suspended over simmering water. Melt the chocolate and remove from the heat. Set aside.

Blend the tofu in a food processor until smooth and uniform. Add the melted chocolate and vanilla and process until perfectly smooth. Scrape into individual dessert cups. Refrigerate until set (not long, perhaps one hour).

Serve with a generous amount of raspberries on top.

asian slaw

This is Asian slaw piled on top of pulled pork, which has been piled on top a homemade (gluten-free!) bun.

It's one of those iconic summer dinners that I could eat any time of year.

The dressing for the slaw is flavoured with nutritional yeast flakes. I know, I know, that sounds too healthy to be tasty, but you just need to trust me here. You should be able to find nutritional yeast flakes in the healthy section of your grocery store. I don't even know how to describe what those little flakes do to the dressing – they make it savoury and umami and totally moreable.

Here's what one brand looks like (along with their friend the toasted sesame seed):

Otherwise, this slaw is pretty darn easy. Slice your cabbage as finely as you have patience for, grate your carrots (hopefully without grating your fingers) and toss them with cilantro and green onion. Stir in the mystery dressing, sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds and – voilà! – you're eating Asian slaw.

You don't have to pair it with pulled pork. We also like it with West Coast crab cakes and mango and fennel chutney, adapted from Whitewater Cooks. I think it would work with burgers, too, and pretty much anything you could barbecue.

I've given you proportions to make extra dressing because it is so very good. You could put it on the glory bowl or plain quinoa or cous cous or any kind of salad, just for starters . . .

P.S. Speaking of barbecues, we just got one! Very exciting times at our house. Do you have any favourite barbecue recipes to share?


one year ago: penne with sausage and greens and salmon with warm tomato basil oil
two years ago: kathleen claiborne's hotcakes and kristina's nuss kuchen
three years ago: chilli pasta and honey orange cream

asian slaw
slightly adapted from Whitewater Cooks by Shelley Adams

2 c. green cabbage, chopped finely
2 c. red cabbage, chopped finely
1 c. carrots, grated
1/2 c. cilantro, chopped
1/2 c. green onions, chopped
1 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

dressing*
1/2 c. nutritional yeast flakes
1/3 c. water
1/3 c. tamari or soy sauce
1/3 c. apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp. tahini paste
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 c. neutral oil, such as grapeseed, canola or vegetable

First, mix up the dressing. Stir the nutritional yeast flakes, water, tamari, vinegar, tahini and garlic together in a bowl. Blitz with an immersion blender until it's consistent. Then add the oil slowly and blitz it in. Set aside just over 1 cup for the slaw and put the rest in the fridge for another use.

In a big bowl that gives you lots of room to move, mix the cabbages, carrot, cilantro and green onion together. Stir in the cup of dressing. Add more to taste. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

*You won't need all the dressing for the slaw. But it's so good that I think you'll be happy to have it around. Otherwise, halve it.